About the U Encounter

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Your generosity will help us add more first- tier works of art (our goal is 100), produce corresponding avenues of exploration (the contemporary story, the reflection, the music, etc.), and enhance interactivity and exploration. It will also help us in the ongoing development of this online exhibition into a formal physical exhibition in a first tier art gallery in North America.

We thank you for your support.

Our Story

The U Encounter invites you to join a conversation with friends and colleagues that has been going on throughout the past decade. Behind so many contemporary issues that garner public attention — militant action done in the name of religion, seeking perfection or healing through the new genetic science, how we define and respond to wealth and poverty, our care for creation and stewardship of resources to name a few—is the question of what we think it means to be a human being. We respond to these current issues, knowingly or not, based on our answer to this question.

At the heart of Western culture, its art and letters, is a treasure trove of images and stories inviting us to consider our understanding of who we are. Our capacity to engage and respond to public conversations may take on greater depth through what the poet called “the surprised delight in discovering what we did not know we knew.”

The U Encounter is brought to you by the Humanitas Group, which was founded for this purpose.

A Curatorial Statement

In his A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts in 1995, the preeminent American philosopher of art Arthur C. Danto suggested that the experience of art requires knowledge of a different order from what was common in people who attend galleries. It is a knowledge that opens the possibility for experiences that “belong to philosophy and to religion, to the vehicles through which the meaning of life is transmitted to people in their dimension as human beings.” What we thirst for, Danto argues, “is meaning: the kind of meaning that religion was capable of providing, or philosophy, or finally art.

Art was constructed as a fount rather than merely an object of knowledge.” Who do you say I am? It is an ancient question spoken in a haunting moment of trial. Who are you? Who am I? The U Encounter invites each of us to join with classic artists who explored this fount of meaning through the narratives of the Hebrew Bible and the Gospels, narratives that remained “ever ancient and ever new” as they joined human beings over the last two thousand years in grappling with the questions that focus on what it means to be human.

Schmemann, Alexander. "On the Nativity of the Mother of God." Celebration of Faith: The Virgin Mary. Vol. 3 of the Sermons of Fr. Alexander Schmemann. Trans. Fr. John Jillions. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1995.

This Psalm is drawn from The Ten Psalms of the Tikkun HaKlali: The Complete Remedy prepared Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. In the late 18th century, the Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, (1722-1810) designated ten of the 150 entries in the Book of Psalms as "healing psalms" able to bring about the healing of spirit and body. They are Psalm 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, and 150.

"The Flight into Egypt." John Harbison, The Flight into Egypt and Other Works, The Cantata Singers and Ensemble, Roberta Anderson, soprano, Sanford Sylvan, baritone, David Hoose, conductor, New World Records 1990. Track 1. Used with permission.

Campolo, Tony. "Compassion: Hope for the City and People." Lifework Leadership sermon in Orlando, Florida on February 9, 2012. (Used by Permission of Tony Campolo's Speaking Office, December 2, 2013. www.TonyCampolo.org)

U Encounter Online Exhibition

Explore what it means to be human with the U Encounter:

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Choose a question to exploreConsider how the image speaks to the questionUse the icons to keep exploringClick the arrow to explore three related imagesLeave a comment or share your journeyUse the Navigate button to explore the next question